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The Academy Awards have been notorious for unforgivable snubs, lack of representation, and of course, dramatic unscripted moments. From John Wayne being restrained from slapping Native American actress Sacheen Littlefeather to Adrien Brody forcefully kissing Halle Berry while accepting his award, the Oscars have constantly been a stage of controversy. This year’s wins seemed to offer some hope. CODA 's Troy Kotsur became the first deaf man to win a Supporting Actor Oscar while West Side Story 's Ariana DeBose became the first openly queer woman of colour in the Supporting Actress category. The Power of the Dog 's Jane Campion emerged as the third woman director to win in her category. Riz Ahmed’s extremely timely commentary on British Islamophobia, The Long Goodbye , also took home the award for Best Live Action Short. And yet despite these iconic wins, the 2022 Oscars will be remembered only for Will Smith’ s slap. Getting into the details behind that display of hypermasc...

It was a bolt from the blue that caught our bleeding-heart liberals off guard; their lies exposed, their chicanery defined with precision and their immorality hanging like a banner for all to see. The spontaneous and spectacular success of the movie,  The Kashmir Files , which portrays movingly the brutal ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley, has expectedly unleashed a barrage of criticism — violent and malignant — that attempts to shred the credibility of the movie, undermine its message and ensure that the atrocities committed on the Kashmiri Pandits is relegated to oblivion so that the nation does not have to answer uncomfortable questions. One film critic dubbed it a “fantasy-revisionist drama” while another accused the movie of “‘propagandist verve”, and “cementing the current dispensation’s favoured discourse”. The very first sentence of yet another review in a major newspaper left no doubt as to where its sympathies lay: “Once upon a time, writer-direct...

Kaun Pravin Tambe, one of the most-anticipated sports biopics this year, is set to stream on Disney+ Hotstar from 1 April. The film is based on the life of right-arm leg spinner Pravin Tambe, who made his debut in the Indian Premier League at the age of 41. Despite having never played international or even first class cricket before, Tambe managed to get noticed by the Rajasthan Royals and soon became an integral part of the team. Shreyas Talpade will essay Tambe's role in the movie. Kaun Pravin Tambe  debunks the myth that age is a barrier to achieving one's goals. Just like Pravin Tambe, many Bollywood actors have made their debut in the industry late in life and achieved fame after the age of 40. Here are some actors who have demonstrated that age is just a number when it comes to pursuing your passion: Boman Irani Irani remains most famous for his roles in the Munnabhai series. The distinguished actor, who has delighted viewers with his roles in Well Done Abba ,...

Morbius is finally set to release this Friday, 1 April, after numerous delays. The movie, which is set in the same world as Venom and Venom: Let There Be Carnage , is part of Sony's universe of Marvel characters. The third film set in the universe, the movie will feature the live-action debut of the comic book character Morbius. The Jared Leto-starrer sees the Oscar-winner play the lead role of Michael Morbius. Morbius starts out as a brilliant scientist suffering from a rare blood disease. In an attempt to find a cure, he attempts to inject vampire bat DNA into his blood, transforming himself into a bloodthirsty pseudo-vampire. The film revolves around how Leto's character deals with his superpowers while fighting his urge for human blood. In the Marvel comics, Morbius was originally introduced as a villain for both Spider-Man and Blade, but he eventually evolved into a vigilante who seeks to satisfy his need for blood by fighting bad guys. If we look at the trailer, the c...

For someone who has assisted on spy thrillers like New York and then went on to be associated with espionage and action flicks like Ek Tha Tiger and Bang Bang , making his big-screen directorial debut with 'fast paced' super soldier thriller Attack (releasing on 1 April) can be called a natural progression. Lakshya Raj Anand who helms the John Abraham, Jacqueline Fernandez and Rakul Preet Singh-starrer, says he had written an action film long back as Ek Tha Tiger ’s sequel when he was assistant on that film. “Later Captain America came and technology kept changing. I was inspired by a lot of films, lot of news articles and then we learnt that the DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation) is making super soldiers and at the same time there is Elon Musk who is making a chip and putting it into your brain, so all that inspired me to make an action film,” says Anand. “Also, Bollywood action films started looking fake when one hero was seen beating up 10 people. So w...

Language: Hindi   Watching an actor’s film release posthumously can be an emotional experience. Just recently, admirers of the late K.P.A.C. Lalitha and Nedumudi Venu got to see both beloved artistes come alive on screen in the Malayalam film Bheeshma Parvam , days after Lalitha breathed her last and less than 5 months following Venu’s death. For Hindi film viewers, Dil Bechara (2020) will always be remembered as Sushant Singh Rajput’s last hurrah, having come to an OTT platform barely over a month after the young star’s premature and tragic end.  There is an added dimension to director Hitesh Bhatia’s Sharmaji Namkeen since Rishi Kapoor passed away before he could complete this Hindi film in which he plays/played the eponymous lead. Instead of abandoning the project or re-shooting it in its entirety with another actor or resorting to VFX or finishing it with an artiste using prosthetics to look like Kapoor, the team decided to shoot the remaining portions with a...

Jim Carrey has slammed Hollywood for giving Will Smith a standing ovation for his Best Actor award for King Richard at the 94th Academy Awards, several minutes after he slapped comedian Chris Rock at the ceremony. The Oscars were overshadowed by the incident, which saw Smith walking over to Rock and slapping him onstage after he made a joke about Jada Pinkett-Smith’s bald head. Pinkett-Smith who suffers from alopecia , shaved her head last year due to excessive hair fall. While Smith later apologised for his actions at the Oscars, many people, including Carrey, have lambasted the Hitch actor for hitting Chris Rock. Carrey told CBS ’ Gayle King that he was “sickened” when he saw Oscar attendees give a standing ovation to Smith after he won the Best Actor award for the first time, even though the he had slapped Rock minutes before.  The actor-comedian stated that the moment felt like “Hollywood is just spineless en masse" and  "that we aren’t the cool club anymore.” The ...

I have known Nagesh Kukunoor for a good 25 years. And I do mean, good. There was never any stress between us even if I didn’t like any of this prolific filmmaker’s work. I must admit that not liking Nagesh’s work is rare. For example,  Bombay To Bangkok  (2008) and Mod (2011) just didn’t work for me. Those apart, I have been a big Kukunoor-o-phile since the quirky Hyderabad Blues in 1998. What a rebellious start Nagesh made! And he followed it up with the boarding school brilliancy of Rockford. I was hooked. We have been in touch since then. With his close friend and longtime soul-sakhi Elahi Heptoolah by his side, Nagesh has gone from strength to strength seeking to instil not only innovation but purity in his cinematic language with quasi-classics like 3 Deewarein in 2003 (Juhi Chawla’s career-best performance), Iqbal  (Shreyas Talpade’s glorious moment), Dor (Ayesha Takiya’s only memorable performance), Aashayein  (John Abraham’s only decent performance), L...

You stood up for your wife and publicly slapped a man ( Chris Rock ) who insulted your wife…. I applaud your grit.  And so do all those people out there who live in constant fear of their loved ones being attacked. It could be a bunch of hoodlums whistling at your sister and passing lewd remarks, or it could be your wife’s colleague at work repeatedly inviting her out when she is not interested. The misuse of the public space to humiliate your opponents, settle scores, or get even is a common curse to mankind. Your reaction in defending your wife made you a bigger hero than the one you play in  King Richard. Ironically King Richard is about protecting one’s family. The way Richard Williams looks out for his daughters is the way we all ought to look out for our loved ones. There is a sequence in  King Richard  where you beat the shit out of a neighborhood Romeo who is troubling...

Vijay Deverakonda on Tuesday said he is going “all out” with JGM , a pan India action movie that reunites the actor with his Liger director Puri Jagannadh. The actor, who shot to nationwide fame courtesy Telugu films Arjun Reddy and Dear Comrade , said his desire to entertain audiences across the country has only grown over the years. “If you can tell a story to a whole country then why not? But at the same time, the audience back home is also very important. Any film that I do, we want everyone to enjoy it and be entertained by it. “It is not easy to always find a story that works for an entire country because they are rooted (in the milieu) and it makes no sense to scale it. I am lucky that I am getting such (pan India) scripts. I have always enjoyed performing for the biggest audience,” Deverakonda told reporters. He was speaking at the press conference of the announcement of JGM here. “National cinema” excites him the most, the 32-year-old actor said. “I knew I wanted to d...

The highly anticipated television series, Moon Knight , is set to premiere today, 30 March, on Disney+ Hotstar. Oscar Isaac plays a superhero whose dissociative identity disorder and psychic connection with the Egyptian god Khonshu leads to him developing four distinct personalities in addition to the titular costumed character. The show is the sixth Marvel Studios series for Disney+ and was created by Jeremy Slater. Moon Knight will have a six-episode run, with new episodes airing every week. Before the series premieres, let's get a quick rundown about the main character. Here's everything you need to know about Moon Knight: History of Moon Knight Moon Knight has never appeared in a Marvel film or television series, but was initially introduced in 1975 in Marvel Comics' Werewolf by Night Nos. 32-33. The character received his first solo comic in 1980, according to a USA Today report. Werewolf by Night No. 32, published in 1975, was the first part of a two-issue ...

In the opening moments of CODA , which won the coveted Best Picture award at Oscars 2022, we see Emilia Jones' Ruby stare at a fish wriggling in the net, freshly captured by her fisherfolk family. That visual encapsulates Ruby's predicament — a fish out of water — a child of deaf adults who can hear. That arresting visual also symbolises the precarious position of CODA in the Best Picture nominations. A lone island in the sea of films designed and positioned as Oscar Best Picture contenders, CODA seemed to ape its protagonist's ambition — a coming-of-age girl who just wants to pitch higher. When CODA won the top honour, it invited the criticism that it is not 'great cinema.' Again, it is the same old tired argument of what constitutes cinema. The greatest achievement of CODA , even within that narrow framework, is that it is both inclusive and relatable. It doesn't treat inclusivity as a criterion to rank high on the Oscars woke meter. It extends its rang...

Abhishek, I’ve never seen you as excited about any film as you are about Dasvi ? I am! I have been telling you about Dasvi for some time; it is a role any actor would be dying to do. How did it come your way? My producer Dinesh Vijan and director Tushar Jalota told me the concept. It was about a kindhearted politician who decides to sit his Class 10 examination from prison. I simply fell for the plot. I had to do this one. How difficult was it to get into the skin of a Haryanvi politician? Gangaram Choudhary is nothing like me. In that sense, this is the most challenging role of my career. The first thing I had to do was master the Haryanvi accent. For that, we had a coach on board. This is the third film in a row where you do an accent. I had a Gujarati accent in The Big Bull . But I didn’t have any Bengali accent in Bob Biswas . We had decided to do away with any accent. But yes, I have done three different culture-specific roles in two years. It was not planned. But I hav...

Many might not remember but there was a time back in the first decade of this new millennium when Indian choreographer Shiamak Davar bought Will Smith onstage in a desi awards function, and made him dance to a couple of Bollywood numbers. It does not say much about the Hindi film industry’s clout but it does say something about the heights Smith’s career had reached at a point when he was being courted by everyone. Smith was a shoe-in to win Best Actor at this year’s Academy Awards for a thoroughly mesmerizing performance as Richard Williams in King Richard . His time had come for Smith is easily the biggest Black star of his generation, or maybe just any generation. Sure, Denzel Washington  is the better actor, but when it comes to achieving global acclaim and recognition, Smith maybe paved the way for Black actors to be idolised as the ‘Hero’ long before it became natural and expected. Smith had a glorious first decade in the industry, going from being a trash-talking acti...

SS Rajamouli’s period drama RRR has sent cash registers ringing at the box-office. The Hindi version of the film has managed to earn over Rs 74 crore in its opening weekend. RRR has grossed over Rs 500 crore worldwide on its opening weekend, according to trade analyst Taran Adarsh. The numbers are especially significant as the film had released on a non-holiday weekend. #RRR is setting new BENCHMARKS... ₹ 500 cr [and counting]... WORLDWIDE GBOC *opening weekend* biz... EXTRAORDINARY Monday on the cards... #SSRajamouli brings back glory of INDIAN CINEMA. Note: Non-holiday release. Pandemic era. pic.twitter.com/ztuu4r9eam — taran adarsh (@taran_adarsh) March 28, 2022 RRR, which stars Jr NTR and Ram Charan in the lead, had collected over Rs 257 crore worldwide on its opening day, beating the record of Rajamouli’s previous blockbuster Baahubali 2: The Conclusion. The Hindi version of the film has emerged as the first movie to gross over Rs 30 crore in a day in the coronavirus p...

Samuel L Jackson was on stage at the Oscars, but it took Will Smith to drop the F-bomb. During a ceremony that celebrated 60 years of James Bond, a Godfather (tribute with legends like Al Pacino , Robert DeNiro, and Francis Ford Coppola ), and a Pulp Fiction reunion (between John Travolta, Uma Thurman, and Jackson), it was Smith who provided the assault for the day. In what seemed like the longest 10 minutes of confusion for the televised audience of the 94 th Academy Awards, the truth finally emerged that the act of Smith getting up on stage and whacking segment host Chris Rock before cussing at him was, in fact, not a scripted event.  Rock, who was on stage to present the best documentary category, made a few jokes about some of the nominees in the acting categories. Using his Will Smith joke, Rock pivoted to crack a tasteless jibe at Jada Pinkett-Smith’s shaven head, alluding it to that of GI Jane. While the actor chuckled weirdly at the joke at first, his wife did not ...